Richard Carman, PhD, Principal Investigator; Deborah Jue, Primary Editor and Author; and Gary Glickman, Additional Author:

Wilson Ihrig led the team for TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 175: Improving Intelligibility of Airport Terminal Public Address Systems. The report provides design guidelines on how to improve public address systems for all types and sizes of airport terminal environments. The guidelines include a summary of data on public address systems, terminal finishes and background noise levels in a variety of airport terminals, identification of acoustical shortcomings, and the results of impacts on existing public address systems. The report provides options for enhancing intelligibility in existing airport terminals, as well as ensuring intelligibility in new terminal designs.

PDF of the full report can be found HERE.

A webinar was presented on 12/13/17 with a related airport project on Wayfinding. The webinar is available HERE.

And the online presentation slides can be found HERE.